Grant Ingles - Everton's Invisible Money Man

And I think any assessment of Mr Ingles' performance should be taken with the words of one Marcel Brands at the forefront of mind where he explained how he was trying to negotiate down the salary of prospective signings while the owner was telling agents Everton would pay almost four times as much in wages.

We unquestionably need fresh blood in the board room and genuine commercial expertise at the top of the club but if I'm wielding an axe, the "pounds and pence" chap isn't the first on my hit list!

The man is only the bean-counter and, for all we know he may have raised fears with the Board and been told to shut up.

We all know Kenwright has a penchant for dodgy dealing by the departure of Trevor Birch – a highly respected finance guy who wouldn't stay beyond 6 weeks,

Who could try and account for almost 𧹈M in losses over 3 years – Covid or no Covid? Those sort of numbers have to involve Moshiri and Kenwright.

Obviously will go to the highest bidder as he was prepared to cross the park. I am but a humble management accountant and deal in the nuts and bolts and not high finance but there is not a salary in this world would make me cross the park, unless it was to make them bankrupt.

I don't really feel you justify levelling a charge of "chronic incompetence" against this guy. All I can see in this article is "guilt by association".

In business, the running of the club is the ability to trade. The legal and accounts end is the mopping up operation after that. So the performance of the club is determined by those that are trading. In Everton, that is the Chairman and the absent owner.

At Everton, there does not appear to any budget, performance targets or accountability function. So the Financial Director does not appear to have that remit.

A fifth of UK CEOs are chartered accountants. Hell, even J D Rockefeller was a bookkeeper.

The profession isn't the problem, it's the tit with too much money and zero sense that's the problem. We've just all kept quiet whilst he builds the stadium.

"Once an accountant, always an accountant."

Jerome knew a guy once. Obviously not David Gill...

The assertion that Ingles has no commercial experience is self contradictory as the article describes him working at Deloittes for years - as if Deloittes was somehow not a business (and a much bigger business than Everton FC).

Without knowing the ins and outs, she most definitely doesn't appear to be operating as a CEO. More like someone that's been given certain projects to run.

Reading your post and taking it at face value, it strikes me that the Financial Director (should he not be a CFO if on the board?) may also have had his wings clipped and suffered either having his advice ignored or being overridden. A common theme that has parallels to how we have conducted our transfer "policy".

I don't know enough about it, other than we need change.

I don't know what the role of this bod, or his predecessors, has played in our glorious Board's history for the past 3 decades. However, I do remember our former illustrious CEO who outsourced everything, including our shirt sales and even the scouse pies, till he went to the Rugby League who parted ways with him pretty sharpish.

I don't know if our Finance Bod then was responsible then, for those six little words... driving the Profitability of the club.

We had been up Shit Creek without a paddle for donkey's years until Mr Moshiri came. I seem to remember a couple of CEOs shooting off in superfast time when they joined EFC years ago. Can't understand why!

As for the Director of Finance's job, didn't Moshiri's chosen man do a runner within a couple of years! I wonder why?

Anyway, back to the Director of Finance and his responsibility for "driving" the profitability of the club. That seems to me to be a lot more than just being a pounds and pence feller who just sits there, tots up the ins and outs, and then sits back and collects thousands of pounds a week.

I think there's a lot more to his job re the driving bit. You can't drive anything if you're not at the wheel; and are just a passenger, as some have pointed out.

I would have thought that "ensuring that the Club complies with all statutory regulations.” must include advising on our position in relation to FFP. If, as has been suggested, he advised the Board of the risks we were running and they ignored this advice, then surly his position became untenable and warranted resignation, similar to Keith Wyness' resignation following his disagreement with BK over his financial links with Phillip Green.

If he failed to spot the FFP risks we were running then this must be regarded as gross incompetence and he should be dismissed.

I say Spurs because, at the outset of the Premier League, they were arguably below us in status but, over the period, have left us for dead.

FSG perhaps??? They got it right eventually with Klopp but prior to him were roundly condemned as useless and enemies of the fans by their own.

So we are left with the 2 trophy baggers, Chelsea and Man City, who just throw money at the project, leaving the rest a homogenous gloop of non-entity clubs (us included) looking for scapegoats.

It's lazy just to blame the board – we have no idea of what goes on and, given fans of all non-entity clubs push this solution no matter who arrives (outside of real money), it's become a parody of fan critique.

I'm very disappointed, tbh.

If winning the title is akin to climbing Everest the shite have only ever been 100 yds from the summit since the 1960s. We visited a few times then retired to a tacky bed and breakfast back at the airport.

The real story about the shite is why have they only won the prem once despite their galactic spending?

They have done next to fuck all relatively speaking but ultimately being 100 yds from the summit were always likely to land a Klopp. FSG got lucky

I think this will be the League Table Moshiri will be focusing on, trying to get to midtable. But it is more than ones seasons work.

Don't think you understand the role of the chief finance person in an organisation. They don't prescribe the way forward... they simply paint the financial consequences of the various options available and then others make the choices.

Why they should have to resign when the club opts for the most high-risk option and then fails is beyond me?

Two of a CFO's key responsibilities are Risk Assessment and Management and Compliance and Consequential Liability. FFP must have been included in both of these areas and as such was / is the responsibility of the CFO to keep his Board appraised. Assuming he did and his Board chose to ignore his considered advice, he should surely consider his position since his Board no longer has confidence in his advice.

Thanks for your considered reply and having read your impressive CV please accept my apologies for my rather curt opening line #18 above.

You make a good point about the FFP rules but in my opinion Moshiri's strategy was to go for broke and throw money in terms of managers, players and DOF's in the hope of achieving Europe. Sadly we fell short by some distance.

The fact that Ingles financially oversaw this strategy but at the same time kept the club on the right side of the FFP rules could be regarded as something of an achievement on his part.

As Ingles hasn't been sacked nor felt the need to resign it may well be that Moshiri and he are very much on the same page with respect to the financial situation at the club.

If you read Everton's most recent accounts they make no mention of FFP and it will be interesting to see what our Auditors BDO have to say in the next set, if anything. Surely they must have been approached by our CFO and maybe even the Premier League.

Let's be honest all we can do is speculate.

This possibly indicates that the seller's reluctance to include the results in our recent accounts is going to be a massive stumbling block when he sits around the table with potential buyers?

Although I am definitely a person who knows very little at all about these things, and it's why I ask, or is it to continue with the speculation?

“Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values and creating none.” — Andrew Carnegie

This site would be a pretty boring place without it though.

Re your comments on Denise Barrett-Baxendale, I agree that she does not appear to be operating as a CEO. But your other comment, she seems more like someone that has been given certain projects to run.

Statement from the club, 26 July 2019:

Denise Barrett-Baxendale will oversee the work of Stadium Development Director Colin Chong and take responsibility for the new Stadium Project, including the delivery of a community-led legacy at Goodison Park.

It is still no excuse for a poor showing as CEO but is in line with your comment.

Ah well, that sheds some light on what her remit or strength is. The Goodison Legacy.

As for her involvement in any stadium issues at Bramley-Moore Dock... No chance, that's well out her league and she probably knows it.

I was thinking more the Everton in the Community stuff and ambassador role. In some businesses, they call it an evangelist role. A promoter.

Only she's not that public from what I've seen. I've not heard a lot from her publicly.

On FFP & the accounts if I were Ingles I'd be arguing with BDO :

- FFP rules (guidance?) aren't statutory
- Everton have remained within FFP
- Everton can comfortably remain within FFP
albeit by selling some of our high value players

I don't think BDO could reasonably insist upon an FFP note forming part of the accounts. As you say it hasn't appeared in the financial statements to date and I'd be very suprised if we see anything in the 21/22 accounts.

But the Accounts do say this:

Based on our understanding… we considered the risk of acts by the Group and its subsidiaries which were contrary to applicable laws and regulations… These included but were not limited to those that relate to the form and content of the financial statements… those that relate to the payment of employees; and industry related such as regulations impacting football club operations including the Premier League Profitability and Sustainability rules whereby throughout our audit work we remained alert to any possible non-compliance especially in relation to player acquisitions.

[Emphasis added]

But it's the bit after the section you choose to highlight that struck me:
"whereby throughout our audit work we remained alert to any possible non-compliance especially in relation to player acquisitions."

I read that to suggest we've been given a clean bill of health on the Premier League's Profit & Sustainability rules and the Premier League have instructed club's to ensure that their auditors comment specifically on how they treat player acquisitions in their accounts.

Doesn't alter the fact, however, that the new strip is dreadful!

But really, the spotlight ought to be on the performance of our own club, before Mr Moshiri came (and after, of course) off the field. I would make a bit of a guess here and say that we've been out performed on this aspect for years by around half of the Premier League clubs.

I think that, before Mr Moshiri came, our Commercial Performance has been consistently dire. Leading to lots of club activities being outsourced during Robert Elstone's tenure as Chief Executive. I think it included our shirt deal with Kitbag which as been poor for the club for yeas.

It is this bloke now, whose performance/responsibility in "Driving the Profitability of the Club", is part of the debate. Is he responsible for the oversight and direction of the Commercial Activites, or is he just a number crunching accountant who's been given a fancy title?

We have not appeared to move on in our thinking or approach for the entire Premier League era.

It is, in all honesty, only the result of luck that we have not followed Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest down into the depths of the football league and stayed there.

The club needs to modernise and innovate off the pitch, it needs to be better commercially and work out how it gets hold of the right players at much lower cost.

The stadium will finally make us look like a modern Premier League club: hopefully we start behaving like one too.

Yes, We have sailed close to the wind, haven't we! And the luck we've had was massively subsidised by the supporters on all three occasions when we looked down... and out of the Prem. The horrible fear, like you've said, is that we'd sink like a stone.

To
a) Improve the performance of the team by selecting good value players and bringing quality youngsters through

b) Make a massive, massive improvement in the publicising and enriching our Club by making massive strides, in our Marketing and Commercial activities,

is absolutely vital.

We won't achieve any of this without top class professionals on the board...not croneys!"

A first-year economics undergrad could do it by the end of his first semester – never mind his first year – and this pair would never get past the first year.